


Pretty Things and Their Demons

by LifesRace



Category: Howl's Moving Castle - All Media Types
Genre: Dealing with our Problems like Adults, Eating Disorders, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Open to Plot Ideas, Self-Harm, Self-Improvement, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-07
Updated: 2019-01-07
Packaged: 2019-10-05 23:18:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 708
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17334245
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LifesRace/pseuds/LifesRace
Summary: To anyone who had ever really met Howl, it was obvious that his desire for beauty came from a dark place. It was an obsession that defied reasonable boundaries- one that drove him to childish meltdowns and caused numbing panic at the most inconvenient times.Howl was vain, certainly. He was also broken, and it was a shame he had never let anyone stick around to pick up the pieces.





	Pretty Things and Their Demons

**Author's Note:**

> Authors Note: I am playing with some themes here that I don’t fully understand, so please comment if you see any glaring problems here!!  
> I watched the movie for the first time the other night and have become obsessed, so like, imagine how upset i was when i realized there's almost no good fanfiction for it?? Like there’s so much material? To work with??

Howl couldn't remember when he started allowing himself to spend so much time in the bathroom and so little time in his room sleeping, but the thinks it might have been when all this started.

_He sunk into the water and let himself feel nothing until his body panicked and forced him upward for air._

In beginning, he would hold out for too long and inevitably choke and cough his way into consciousness. He had been unused to this kind of abuse. Now that he has a rhythm- yes he’s aware that doing this often enough to have a rhythm is a problem- he only gets disoriented and dizzy after a couple tries. He calls it meditation and it mostly is. It gives him an enormous sense of stillness that he couldn’t achieve with any spell. Mostly it allows him to feel nothing... not loneliness or abandonment or fear... an invaluable asset in times like these.

It's a peaceful high, his thoughts melting down into the water and draining below him. 

_Breath in… breath out… rinse…. Repeat…_

Sometimes he took it too far and it took him ages to break out of the funk. He would struggle to regain his vision and feel lightheaded for hours afterword. But he had things to do- a lot of things actually- so he would eventually continue on his day whether he was ready to or not. Most of the time he was followed by a vague sense of nausea and lightheadedness coupled with guilt because he had once again forgot to give Markl a lesson or feed him and Calcifer (which he was aware was becoming another worrisome problem entirely).

At first he was worried that he would be called out, that Markl and Calcifer would start asking him what he was doing for so long in the bathroom, but people rarely asked questions when you kept so many quirks. Besides, Markl and Calcifer and that cat he had once for a couple months hardly counted as people. One was a child and one was a fire demon, and they cared but they couldn't exactly do anything about it. And it wasn’t like he wasn’t also being a vain pain in the arse- he tried harder than they could even imagine to look like the walked out of a story book. He kept his hair meticulously dyed, his skin unmarked, and any wrinkles smoothed. He was as young as he was old, grown and childlike all at once. A lot of it was real and a lot of it was illusion, but even he could see that the finished effect was stunning.

He was unmatched for beauty in the kingdom, as had been evident from an early age. From the beginning he was dangerous and clever, but first and foremost beautiful, and that was fine with him so long as it kept others from realizing he was mainly dangerous and clever. He kept those playing cards near and dear to him. As long as he was pretty but useless he was safe, so long as nobody found him and proved otherwise.

He understood that he would be a useful tool in the war for either party, but his aversion to violence and suffering meant he refused to take part either way. Death and disease was an ugly thing, and he refused to potentially do anything that could encourage the war to go on. If he could save lives on his own he always would and did, but he refused to help Suliman in the matter, for reasons both personal and moral. 

It was incredibly taxing. He had to be on the lookout for any direct dangers to the towns- well anything he could reasonably prevent- and also stay on high alert from the Witch of the Waste and Suliman's henchman. This meant a lot of manipulating Calcifer and a lot of time spent in his other form. He was constantly having to deal with well, everything, and there was very little he could do to cope with it personally except keep up with his rituals. 

As long as he looked beautiful and his mind stayed mostly quiet he was  _fine._ Why wouldn't he be? He was a fearsome wizard after all. 

**Author's Note:**

> Please let me know if this is something you are interested in reading! I will post a longer chapter around 8pm tomorrow. I really appreciate anyone who read this and would love feedback on what to post more of. I am terrible at elaborating on ideas so it'd be great to hear what is interesting and what is too self-indulgent.


End file.
